By Katya Church of Book Stop, Tavistock
The Manningtree Witches
The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore - front cover
The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore
The year is 1643. Rebecca West exists uneasily in a world of mundane work and discomfort as the Civil War rages on in England. She resides with a mother she finds intolerable, mends and delivers for the townsfolk, attends church, and is taught to read by a man with whom she has fallen in love. The drudgery of her life is called into question, however, when Matthew Hopkins comes to Manningtree. Slithering into their lives like a snake, he starts a game of witch hunting, that tears at the feeble community’s fabric and exposes women who don’t quite toe the dictated line. Rebecca soon finds herself the subject of Hopkins’s scrutiny, and must learn what it means to survive. Blakemore writes with delicious lyricism, shrewd historical insight and intense pathos to depict a society on the edge - and what it takes to topple it.
Publisher: Granta, £8.99
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